Quintilian was the first chair of Latin rhetoric in the Roman public school system. By the time Quintilian was writing, rhetoric had become a school subject. Institutes Oratoria is the most complete treatise on rhetoric surviving from antiquity. In the text, he focuses on how eloquence is predicated upon personal virtue combined with artistic eloquence. It is hypothesized that his focus on morals in the text many explain it’s influence on Christianity. The text itself pulls together an outline of rhetorical and moral education from infancy through adulthood for any rhetor who would enter his school. Much of the material combines the work of Aristotle and Cicero into the system Quintilian was using. Throughout the text, Quintilian relies heavily on the work of Cicero to support his ideas and draws heavily from De Oratore.
Historians compare Cicero to Quintilian to Quintilian’s determent to illustrate the decline of rhetoric under the empires.
Q often cites Cicero—born 80 yrs after C’s death.
Excelled only in forensic oratory—Institutio devoted mostly to forensic
Definition of Rhetoric
“The true orator must be the good man speaking well” (skilled in speaking) - While the wording may be original, the idea is also a theme in Plato’s Phaedrus, Isocrates’ Antidosis, and CIcero’s De Oratore
Institutio Oratoria (c.
Quintilian’s discussion of the two kinds of questions:
Indefinite questions have no specific reference.
Definite questions have specific reference to person, place, or time.
What Quintilian defines as an indefinite question is the same thing that Aristotle defined as dialectic. Also, the definite questions fit Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric. So, what we see is Quintilian merging the “counterparts” into a single theory with two separate sides.
Q’s work Institutio Oratoria is secondary rhetoric in many ways
Great detail on teaching, child rearing—from the cradle onward.
Compares student/teacher to son/father (a departure from the erotic Greeks)
Book I earliest stages of rhetorician’s education. Parenting—parents should speak good Latin, have high hopes, etc
Book II Next level of ed. Oratory should move hearers to the good.
Book III. Rehearses scholarly sources of views of rhetoric 5 parts (repeated from Cicero (invention…)
3 kinds of subject matter (panegyrical, deliberative, judicial)
3 goals for each speech (inform, to move, to please—how to compose each)
Book IV discusses invention (argument by example ala Socrates)
VIII style (elocution)
Book IX differentiates tropes and figures (trope twisted from its original meaning, figure less twisted).
Book X Importance of reading and writing for oratory skill (modeling)
Book XI Argument of necessity of orator being a good man—mind shaped by study of moral philosophy, civil law, history, poetry, control of impulses.
Quintillian 35-96 CE Roman (Spain)
Quintilian was the first chair of Latin rhetoric in the Roman public school system. By the time Quintilian was writing, rhetoric had become a school subject.Institutes Oratoria is the most complete treatise on rhetoric surviving from antiquity. In the text, he focuses on how eloquence is predicated upon personal virtue combined with artistic eloquence. It is hypothesized that his focus on morals in the text many explain it’s influence on Christianity. The text itself pulls together an outline of rhetorical and moral education from infancy through adulthood for any rhetor who would enter his school. Much of the material combines the work of Aristotle and Cicero into the system Quintilian was using. Throughout the text, Quintilian relies heavily on the work of Cicero to support his ideas and draws heavily from De Oratore.
Definition of Rhetoric
“The true orator must be the good man speaking well” (skilled in speaking) - While the wording may be original, the idea is also a theme in Plato’s Phaedrus, Isocrates’ Antidosis, and CIcero’s De OratoreInstitutio Oratoria (c.
Quintilian’s discussion of the two kinds of questions:
What Quintilian defines as an indefinite question is the same thing that Aristotle defined as dialectic. Also, the definite questions fit Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric. So, what we see is Quintilian merging the “counterparts” into a single theory with two separate sides.
External Sources:
Qunitilian on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintilian